Page:René Le Coeur Le bar aux femmes nues, 1925.djvu/10

 And then, when they found out that the gentleman was coming there to find subjects for stories, we became quite good comrades, them and me. And they told me stories! They told me stories! Most of them, however, are not really interesting. The suggested themes give an amusing idea of the literary conceptions of my young friends from the small bar:

"You should write in your newspaper that the usherette steals all our clients. You see, sir, it's not fair. We undress completely to work; we earn 10 francs a day and catch cold! And then the usherette takes advantage of being in the theater to arrange meetings with the gentlemen; we see her maneuver from the stage. Sometimes, I feel like jumping over the prompter's hole."

Obviously, as a story subject, it's a bit thin. But we shouldn't laugh about it. I've read 300-page volumes that won literary prizes and didn't have a more complicated plot than that of the usherette, the ladies, and the gentlemen. Only, those volumes weren't funny at all.

"I know a good story," declares the beautiful Marie-Louise, who is the Scheherazade of the bar. "It's the story of Liseron who had a very rich friend. But he never came here. We never saw him."

"Maybe he didn't exist," declares Lucette, who has short hair and looks shrewd.

"Nonsense! The coat existed, you remember Liseron's coat? And his pretty wristwatch, and everything."

Marie-Louise Scheherazade continues, addressing the gentleman:

"We all, you have to admit, envied Liseron's situation. And Yvette, a little, very nice girl, not very wealthy, who doesn't come here anymore, always used to say to her:

"Oh, Lili, how I wish I had a friend like yours."